EMPATHEAST - EMPATHY DRIVEN SOCIAL CHANGE AND OPEN EDUCATION IN EASTERN EUROPE - 2014

3-hour Learning Lab with Guus Geisen (in English)

The need to understand complexity is of all ages. In the past 250 years we have been trying to understand complexity from the perspective of problems and dividing the problems into parts. If you have a problem, separate the part that is not working well, change it and put it all together again. It is the machine age thinking that is based on the principles of fragmentation, uniformity and productivity. It has been very helpful for a long time but not anymore. The world has changed and our children are the leverage to create the new perspective of complexity.

What if we would look at complexity from the perspective of a living system? The key principles of a living system are interconnectedness, diversity and self-organization. So to be able to self-organize your world through diversity and interconnectedness you need to be able to use different tools to see, to think about and to act on complexity. In the process of deep learning and reflection you deeply understand complexity, develop knowledge, insights and new attitudes to be able to create your world.

To be able to create empathy driven social change we need to invest in three levels of sustainability: as a human being, as a professional and as a systems citizen. So it is about the awareness of myself (empathy driven), interconnected to the other (social) and to the world here and there and now and later (change). In this learning lab we will experience complexity, learn to use tools of systems thinking (the iceberg, the Behavior over Time Graph, the Connection Circle) to look different at complexity and embrace complexity as a leverage to deepen our learning. 

Drama Theatre - Lobby 2

90-minute workshop with Ralph Boehlke (in English)

What does community-led action mean in the Bulgarian context? How could it look like – what kind of activities do you consider as important and realistic? How could community-led action be financed in Bulgaria?

This workshop is meant as a continuation of Ralf’s talk “Yes we can – The power of community-led action” that is going to be held on Friday 14/11. This session might be of interest for you no matter if you are a local activist or just a curious citizen, a local government official or a social entrepreneur. 

At Drama Theatre - Lobby 1

150-minute workshop with Jason Nardi from Banca Etica (in English)

At the end of the game, the participants will have experimented the link between their choice of (financial) investment and its (indirect) impact on the collective quality of life and will have a general notion of what distinguishes Ethical Finance from Speculative Finance.

This simulation was created by the members of the Italian Ethical Bank (Banca Popolare Etica) territorial group of Brescia (GIT Brescia). It was translated, modified and re-adapted by the Ethical Bank Foundation (Fondazione culturale responsabilità etica) and has been used in both formal school environments (high schools in particular) and informal groups of both young and adults.

Drama Theatre - Lobby 1

1-hour design thinking workshop with Elina Zheleva (in Bulgarian)

In this short, fast paced, practical workshop Elina Zheleva will show you how you can design better products and services for a specific group of people, in this case - the elderly.

Good design starts with good user research. This is why the focus of this workshop will be trying out various user research techniques like in-depth interviews, ethnographic observations and walking in the shoes of the elderly user. These techniques together improve your empathy and allow you to build a solution that not only solves the problem technically, but delights the elderly.

Drama Theatre - Lobby 2

6 x 30-minute workshops with Daniela Dimitrova (in Bulgarian / English upon request)

Dialogue in the Dark is an emotionally challenging and cognitively demanding moving beyond sight experience. The workshops in darkness help test one’s limits leading to a tangible experience of combining emotional intelligence and social competence. This inspiring experience brings about dramatic insights for professional leaders in their everyday routines, especially focusing on skills to improve communication, trust, empathy, leadership, team building and acceptance of diversity. Our facilitators, themselves blind, are experts and create a learning atmosphere of authenticity, empathy and openness. Our workshops for social and emotional learning can be an important contribution to personality development, while enhancing human interaction and mutual understanding and thereby confirming the philosopher Martin Buber’s famous observation, stating that: “The only way to learn is by encounter.”

2-hour workshop with Agota Ruzsa (in English)

This workshop is based on D-Bohm’s approach about understanding of the quantum space and the role of humans in a generative, co-creative presence with the consciousness that offers the ’fertile’ soil for our culture and bevhaviour. Thus to change our behaviour and  culture, the direct path is to tap into this generative field. Deep and Integrated group dialogues offer an opportunity for this process to unfold  and there we may move into this ’alchemical oven’ of the heart where all that is unneccessary for life, for creation, self-sustaining resilience and reaching out towards the environment  burns away.
The beauty of the deep dialogue process is that it taps into the source of life, thus brings resources to the surface for us to ’utilize’ in creativity, innovation and collective, compassionate actions.

In the workshop we will have some opportunity to go deeper int he experience and the understanding of this approach.

Bohmean dialogue has become the foundation of many participative, hosting practices where groups are turning to oneanother in an intention of co-cretion and bridging differences, deepening compassion and enhancing shared understanding in conflicting issues, or differences of mindsets…

Drama Theatre - Lobby 2

Baba Residence is Ideas Factory’s dream come true to link the potential of the young people with the knowledge and the pressing needs of the old people in depopulating villages in Rhodope mountain in order to accumulate sincere and true sharing. 18 young people from different Bulgarian cities lived for a month in an authentic contact with the local people of 4 Rhodope villages - Yugovo, Dzhurkovo, Dryanovo and Manastir. These meeting gave birth to many shared moments, songs, friendships and socially innovative project for the renewal of these villages. The old village people shared the wit and crafts they carry inside them, but had started to consider unimportant.

Cinema House at 37 Ekzarh Yosif str.

Darplay is a game in which there are no winners or losers. Everybody has 3 minutes spent in a group of 4 people so that s/he can hear her/his own words clearly. It’s time when you can also hear every other person.

Holistic hall, SOHO, 4 Iskar str.

Filipa and Claudian Dobos will lead the workshop. WTR builds motivation, creativity, courage and solidarity for the transition to a sustainable human culture.

SO BAr, SOHO, 4 Iskar str.

LaLU&GER explores the human and the processes that occur in and around it by design, creating a cozy space with all the necessary conditions for creation, LaLU&GER provides the opportunity for parents and children to build a new relationship with each other, experiencing and sharing the process outside their home. Equality, mutual aid, a new level of communication. The children become parents, and parents become children.

Bulgaria hall, SOHO, 4 Iskar str.

Dialogue in the dark is now in Bulgaria! Daniela Dimitrova from Dialogue in the Dark, Germany, who presented the model of this social enterprise at EMPATHEAST 2014, helped train 6 blind Bulgarians who now can facilitate different experiences in the dark - from wine tastings to literary readings, concerts and discussions.

The workshop will have two groups - at 15:00 and at 17:00

SOHO garage, 4 Iskar str.

Why wait for the Euro, if we can make our own local currency and exchange system ? And help revitalise and (re)build community through it ? LETS (Local Exchange Trade Systems) exist in many countries and in many forms and don't need many resources to be created. 

Youth house

FEAST Greece, an offline crowdfunding platform that sparks ideas to become real is organizing a hands on workshop on how to use crowdfunding as an alternative method of funding for civic and creative projects. During the workshop topics like types of crowdfunding, methodology on how to organize a campaign, tips for pitching, best practices on promoting a campaign will be covered. And keep in mind, if you are already considering organizing a campaign in the near future, bring your ideas and get constructive feedback.

Youth house

BEPART mission is rethinking processes of urban planning through participation and art. We ask creatives to realize installations for regeneration of urban areas involving the local community, taking into consideration its needs, and facilitating communication among the community and local authorities. We want to change the way you perceive public spaces, to make art accessible to all citizens and to use creativity, ideas and creative thinking as a vehicle to solve urban issues. 

Youth house

Workshop for motivation and creativity

As part of the first EMPATHEAST - forum for empathy driven social change in Eastern Europe, we from the Ideas Factory, together with our partners from Plovdiv 2019 Foundation and the Center for Human Resources Development invite you to our World Café - a global format used to create innovative solutions and a shared vision for the development of society.

Moderators of our shared space for social innovation will be the founders of World Cafe Europe  - Patricia Munro and Jeff Beeson.

As a participant in World Cafe, you must be open to other people's point of view, ready to share and develop yours and venture boldly into the interdisciplinary process called softly "cross-pollination of ideas" that occurs due to the variety of actors - from local authorities, experts from the ministries of economy and education, business, media, civil society, and other creative industries.

This is an effective and flexible format for dialogue among a large group of people that ends with practical ideas that are ready to be developed.

What to expect?

You will have a few minutes to discuss a specific quesion with the group around your table and to get to possible innovative solutions. Then you can choose another interesting topic for you and you will find yourself in a new group of people with new resources and points of view.

Finally, the ideas from all groups will be summarized and the results can be used by local authorities, civil society organizations, media, and all people in their future actions, policies and activities.

On Sunday, November 16th we will pick specific ideas from the World Cafe that we can begin to implement and realize.

Participation at the World Cafe is possible only with a registration for the format on our website!

15.11 Furniture salon"Galero" (ex-tobacco warehouse), 16, Ekzarh Yossif street

Pitch of ideas from the Social Innovation Challenge and Baba Residence.

SKLADA, 11 G. Benkovski str., fl. 4

Ideas of social enterprises, cultural initiatives and various social innovations are being presented in front of an audience in search of support and feedback

Military club

Tobacco Warehouse neighborhood

The tour will take you around the neighborhood of the former tobacco warehouses, which is located along one of the most beautiful streets of Plovdiv - Ivan Vazov street - and neighboring blocks. Although most of the buildings are partly ruined, their architectural excellence is still visible. They are part of the historical heritage of the city from the times of economic prosperity in the beginning of XX century.

in Bulgarian (English upon request)

Meeting point - in front of the Drama Theatre

Free Plovidiv Tour will organize two tours for the guests of EMPATHEAST:

KAPANA

The main purpose of the tour is to show the spirit and charm of Kapana and to show you the transformations the neighborhood has gone through during the past decades.

In Bulgarian (English upon request)

Meeting point - in front of the Drama Theatre

Artists working in different fields are being introduced to a challenge – a mission to creatively transform the urban environment according to a certain social issue. 

Mir Vam is a verbatim performance of the Bulgarian studio for documentary theatre VOX POPULI. It focuses on the urgent topic of the refugee tragedy and its reflection in Bulgaria.